Picking up traction is the idea that “Microsoft Hatred” is driving Mono/Moonlight/CodePlex/Miguel criticism, and perhaps is even the real ideological foundation of the Free Software movement.

Of course, this is absurd and insulting, but I suppose I should take a moment to point out that RMS and the FSF also object to Apple, Amazon, DRM, and Software Patents. It is a very consistent and principled stand for end-user freedom and against those actors trying to control and restrict freedom. It just so happens that Microsoft is one of the largest offenders in this area. So they get a lot (but proportionately appropriate) amount of criticism.

Further the idea that objection and criticism == hatred is false. The intent is to discredit the critic by portraying is message as emotionally driven and irrational. But pointing out that some companies are working very hard to remove freedom through DRM, patents, proprietary formats, price dumping, illegal practices, bribery, vote-stacking, or other offensive practices is fact-based, rational, and grounded in documented evidence.

Another company that more quietly attacks Linux would have to be Apple. Its CEO rejected Linux despite its engineers’ advice (they wanted to base the iPhone on Linux) and he must know very well the reason to be afraid of Linux, which is technically better than their UNIX and a lot cheaper too. So Apple uses dirty tricks against Linux phones like Palm's and here is the latest twist:

On Tuesday, a Palm spokeswoman confirmed to The Reg that “webOS 1.2 did not reestablish media sync with iTunes.”

Palm and Apple have been playing hide the salami with iTunes syncing since the Pre shipped in June. First syncing was in, then it was out. Then in. Then out.

No one’s buying Apple hardware because it syncs with iTunes. They’re buying it for many other reasons, and Apple can continue to compete on those. Blocking the Pre and other devices from accessing iTunes is petty and unnecessary.

Should the “Apple Hater” label be put into use too? Surely, that must be “irrational hatred”, right? And the fault of “zealots” like Michael Masnick, who coined the term “Streisand effect” and typically defended rights and freedom. █

“We should design some of our extensions explicitly so that IBM can’t run them under OS/2. We need to put real thinking into this.”

I have no trouble saying I hate MS. Given the impact they’ve had on the industry; and the world given the risen importance of computers these days, I actually think ‘hate’ is a pretty logical position to take. And i’m not even a web developer.

They have increased the cost and difficulty of the use of computers for all of us. Each dollar they make above the net worth of their product is money taken away from the rest of the industry that could have been spent to improve things.

I very much dislike Apple too, but it doesn’t reach any where near the level of hate since they have been quite insignificant to my life. e.g. I don’t have a crippled keyboard with a tiny space bar because of apple, nor am I forced to pay them money every time i buy an unrelated product like a portable computer.

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again